Q&A: The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus

On The Walking Dead, which returns on AMC this Sunday, there's really only one tried and true badass, and that badass is Norman Reedus, who plays zombie-killing expert Daryl Dixon. When ﬁrst introduced, Daryl seemed like a classic numbskull, a redneck's redneck who knew his way around a gun and a Wafﬂe House menu. But over the course of nearly three seasons, he's become a fan favorite for his aforementioned flair in slaying hazardous zombies and his compassion for his fellow survivors. We recently spoke to Reedus in New York City about where his character on The Walking Dead is headed, his zombie-killing technique, and roller-derby groupies.

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ESQUIRE.COM: Daryl has become a very central character in season three. Will he be crucial to the survivors surviving?

NORMAN REEDUS: Oh, absolutely. Daryl from the beginning was looking for Sophia, and Rick would say, "Let's wait, let's make a plan, let's all go together," and he'd say, "No, I'm better off on my own." The reason he's staying is having these people rely on him for safety has given him a new sense of self-worth. That's the glue that'll keep him in there.

ESQ: Last time we saw Daryl, he was left with a tough decision to make about his own survival.

NR: That's a personal prison-within-the-prison-of-the-arena-within-the-prison existing within a zombie outbreak. The core prison is he and his brother. Once little brother is around big brother, he reverts back to doing whatever big brother says. I've been trying to play him — he's grown up in this world of racism and drugs and hard knocks, and that's not the person he wanted to grow up as. There's a part of him that's embarrassed that he's that guy. When Merle says to him, "These people don't care about you, they'll just scrape you off their shoe," and so forth, that's the inner thinking that he's always had. He's defensive because city people don't like him and he can't relate. If you look really carefully, when the Governor is manhandling him, and he yanks his hood off him, and he sees Merle for the ﬁrst time, he backs into the Governor's chest. That's a bigger thing than the situation he's in. Once Merle is back, he's going to make a bunch of decisions. Merle's kind of like your drunk uncle at a Christmas party. You can't really take him anywhere.

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ESQ: A lot of main characters have been dying off. Who's been the saddest for you to see go?

NR: Jon Bernthal is probably the one I speak to the most. I talk to him a lot. As a character, maybe Dale. Dale was kind of the last hope of morality of this group. Seeing him go was kind of a drag.

ESQ: Do you get nervous about getting a call in the middle of the night that's like, "Norman, sorry, the zombies have your number"?

NR: [Laughs.] Every. Fucking. Week. Every time we get a script, we thumb through to the back to see if we made it. I'm not even exaggerating, I wish I was joking. You just don't know. You have sort of an idea, and the producers and writers are gracious enough to give you a little heads-up if you want the opportunity to tell everybody goodbye before they read it on the page. But it stinks when somebody dies on this show. We have a "death dinner," and we say goodbye and tears are ﬂowing and lots of hugs. I know it's good for ratings to kill people, and it keeps people on the edge of their toes, but hopefully this next season isn't as brutal as last season and the season before.

ESQ: For this "death dinner," does the person who dies get to choose their ﬁnal meal like an execution?

NR: We're so ruthless, we make them pay for it! No, I'm joking. You know, we're down in the sticks in Georgia, so there's a good ﬁve or six restaurants that we go to.

ESQ: Daryl is quite skilled at zombie-killing. Has his technique evolved?

NR: It has. It's funny because you can't shoot a live arrow on set. With a gun, you can put in a ﬂash and pose. With the crossbow, it's kind of a math problem, especially if there are multiple zombies in front of you to kill. You have to use everything on your person. You have to pull an arrow, show it to camera, load the crossbow, show that in camera, drop the crossbow out of camera, throw the arrow on the ground, pick it back up, and then from then on, it's a digital arrow. You gotta go and retrieve your arrow, because people would be like [in a whiny voice] "How did he get so many arrows?" So my zombie-killing skills are insane right now.

ESQ: That sounds like it would take a couple of days to do.

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NR: It takes me a couple hours to get that right. No, I got it pretty much down. The crossbow is one of those weapons, when you climb a tree, you pull out your arrows slowly and pick things off. It's not like an AK where you can just run in and blast everything in front of you.

ESQ: Had you used a crossbow prior to working on The Walking Dead?

NR: Never had done a crossbow before. I've done about fifty shows, and I think I've killed somebody in all of them. I'm good with knives and weapons, but the crossbow is a tricky thing. It's a powerful weapon. You can shoot that thing through a brick wall. I steal that crossbow every year. It's hanging on my son's wall right now. It's deﬁnitely a cool weapon. I was just in Tokyo about four days ago, and I shot the long bow. Those are like a six-foot bow-and-arrow. I shot one of those on live TV. The instructor, in traditional Japanese garb, said, "Oh, he'll never even reach the target." And as he said that, I hit it. Those targets are like the ﬁfth of the size of regular targets, and I got that thing on live TV. Everybody was like, "Woah!" I"m pretty good with my bows and my arrows.

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ESQ: Since the last episode aired, it was announced in December that showrunner Glen Mazzara would not be returning for season four. What was your reaction to that?

NR: I love Glen. All those decisions are made in other cities. Whatever the reason is or whatever the future brings, we're always going to all love each other. We're a tight group, and there's not a weak link on our chain. Glen, Frank [Darabont] — we're going to be a family to the end.

NR: I have Daryl's Dolls, Dixon's Vixens, Reedusluts. There are like fifteen of those groups. I think they should start a roller derby league.

ESQ: Would you referee the roller-derby match?

NR: Heck, yeah. How fun would that be? I'd love that. We could shoot those Nerf arrows at them as they ﬂy by.

ESQ: Did you ever imagine having so many groupies?

NR: Even now I have about four friends. So, no, I didn't see any of that happening. The amount of Daryl love I get is great. It makes me work harder.

ESQ: When the show started, I never would've thought he'd have such a passionate fan base.

NR: I think Daryl was sort of an experiment in the beginning, to be honest. But the thing about Daryl is that he's loyal, he wears his heart on his sleeve, he means what he says. He's not trying to run the group. He's not Shane. He's not a one-note guy. He's trying to ﬁgure out who he is and become this new man in this world.

ESQ: You recently shot a ﬁlm called The Pawnshop Chronicles that stars Elijah Wood and features meth addicts, skinheads, and an Elvis impersonator. Do you play a meth addict, a skinhead, or an Elvis impersonator?

NR: It's very Tarantino-like. You gotta look for me in the ﬁlm, which I like. I did that, and I went straight into another one called Sunlight Jr. with Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon that will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

ESQ: What do you play in that one?

NR: I'm a different type of white trash in that one. That tank-topped, jewelry-wearing, long-shorts, sandals-with-the-white-socks asshole in that one. I was so mean to Naomi in the ﬁlm. Every day, I'd be like, "Sorry for today. See you tomorrow." I play her ex- boyfriend, and it's sort of — I don't know if you'd call it a love triangle. She's going through some stuff, and I'm this jerk who helps her in some weird way? I don't know.

ESQ: Do you have a mullet?

NR: I don't have a mullet, but going into season one on The Walking Dead, I asked to have a mullet, and everybody talked me out of it. Because I'd have to wear a mullet when we were not shooting every day. I have that motorcycle, wings on my vest, the crossbow... Maybe a mullet would've thrown me over the edge.

ESQ: When you're not slaying zombies, what do you do to relax these days?

NR: Jeez, relax? I just got in about midnight. I was in Taipei, Tokyo, Sydney, and it was non-stop. I think I went to bed this morning at 6 a.m., just watching Portlandia, trying to fall asleep. I have a cartoon I'm developing with Adult Swim called Monster Town USA, so I'm busy doing that. Trying to do a coffee-table book of my photography that's been requested of me a couple of times. I'm constantly busy.